Galaxy scale lenses in the RCS2: I. First Catalog of Candidate Strong Lenses

TL;DR

This paper introduces the first catalog of galaxy-scale strong lens candidates from the RCS2 survey, highlighting their properties and potential for follow-up studies in understanding galaxy mass distribution.

Contribution

It provides a new catalog of 60 galaxy-scale lens candidates at intermediate redshifts, expanding the sample for studying galaxy mass and dark matter content.

Findings

Lens galaxies are massive (~5.5x10^11 M_sun/h) and dark matter-rich (~14 M_sun/L_sun)

The catalog samples an intermediate redshift range (0.2<z<0.5)

A slight increase in mass-to-light ratio from z=0.2 to 0.5 is observed

Abstract

We present the first galaxy scale lens catalog from the second Red-Sequence Cluster Survey. The catalog contains 60 lensing system candidates comprised of Luminous Red Galaxy (LRG) lenses at 0.2 < z < 0.5 surrounded by blue arcs or apparent multiple images of background sources. The catalog is a valuable complement to previous galaxy-galaxy lens catalogs as it samples an intermediate lens redshift range and is composed of bright sources and lenses that allow easy follow-up for detailed analysis. Mass and mass-to-light ratio estimates reveal that the lens galaxies are massive (<M>~5.5x10e11 M_sun/h) and rich in dark matter (<M/L>~14 M_sun/L_sun,B*h). Even though a slight increasing trend in the mass-to-light ratio is observed from z=0.2 to z=0.5, current redshift and light profile measurements do not allow stringent constraints on the mass-to-light ratio evolution of LRGs.